Marvel movies
at this point feel like a collection of Christmas tree ornaments. Lamentably,
it’s not the feeling when you gaze at a deftly decorated tree but rather when
you first open the dusty box after 11 months of storage. A box full of old
stuff that you kind of remember from last year and now it’s your job to make
something stimulating out of them.

Each Marvel
film has a fable-like allegory placed upon the characters. This is a perfectly
legitimate approach at extracting affinity and insight, yet none of them have
been particularly successful at either. They still feel like cold, corporate
confections designed not to enrapture but to expand its own brand.

In Captain
America: Civil War – the 3rd Captain America film, the 1st
film of Phase Three and the 13th film overall in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe – the characters are concerned with the endangerment that their powers
inflict on innocent civilians. We know this because all the actors are
habitually looking at the ground with solemn expressions during tight close-ups.
These expository sequences are interspersed with scenes of either smug comedy
or chases and battles, some of which are quite stirring.

After the
destruction in Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron and an opening fight here
that slays even more citizens in Nigeria, the Avengers face the censure of the
global civic, leading the United Nations to create the Sokovia Accords, their
goal being to regulate superhero interference.

Vision (Paul
Bettany) sees the reason in this procedure, clarifying to the others that the
development of more and more “enhanced” humans has meant a concurrent rise in
planet-threatening emergencies, and that the Avengers’ very existence is an enflaming
event. Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) refuses to sign the accord,
convinced that the Avengers’ independence is the only way to address concern
before it becomes disastrous. As lines are drawn, and team members choose
sides, Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) returns, as does a man
named Zemo (Daniel Brühl), who seems to be obsessed with Barnes’ activities.

Tony Stark/Iron
Man (Robert Downey Jr) feels the worst about everything and can’t believe Rogers doesn’t want to
comply. This leads to an even larger rift between to the two than there already
was.

Eventually they
all fight each other, all of which is the consequence of a myriad of bungled
explications: a disharmony between Stark and Pepper Potts that is never
explored, a romance between Rogers and Sharon Carter that comes out of nowhere,
a villain’s plan that doesn’t really make sense, an extremely thin excuse as to
Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch’s (Elizabeth Olsen) sudden state of rage, awkward cameos from Martin
Freeman, Alfre Woodard and Marisa Tomei and the overall plunge into vengeance
that all the main characters seem to take. I was never in anyway penetrated by the
dilemma of what these people had to go through.

Despite this,
there are fun moments. Most of them come from the two new additions to the group:
T'Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) whose stealth abilities remain
intriguing throughout and Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) who is
wonderful in the role as he continues to prove to be one of the more
charismatic teenage actors today. The rest of the cast are either stiff or
hammy, especially Mr Downey who is both in every scene.

The Russo
brothers stage their action set-pieces with slightly more aplomb and ambition
than before, though I don’t know why they still insist on shooting everything in
shutter-speed so that the cinema screen turns into a stuttering monster.

Look, those who
want their comic book thirst quenched will probably enjoy this manufactured
little adventure. We travel the world, we fight bad guys and we make quips for
those who have been paying encyclopedic attention. But these superhero movies, no
matter which studio is making them, are barely television let alone cinema. If you think I
should just accept this at face value and move on, then fine. That’s actually
easy when there is no other value to be found.